In this post I’ll show how to build a dockerized OpenStack and OpenContrail lab, integrate it with Juniper MX80 DC-GW and demonstrate one of Contrail’s most interesting and unique features called BGP-as-a-Service.
Continue readingIn this post I’ll demonstrate how to build a simple OpenStack lab with OpenDaylight-managed virtual networking and integrate it with a Cisco IOS-XE data centre gateway using EVPN.
Continue readingIn this post I’ll have a brief look at the NFV MANO framework developed by ETSI and create a simple vIDS network service using Tacker.
Continue readingIn this post I’ll show how to configure Neutron’s service function chaining, troubleshoot it with Skydive and how SFC is implemented in OVS forwarding pipeline.
Continue readingI’m returning to my OpenStack SDN series to explore some of the new platform features like service function chaining, network service orchestration, intent-based networking and dynamic WAN routing. To kick things off I’m going to demonstrate my new fully-containerized OpenStack Lab that I’ve built using an OpenStack project called Kolla.
Continue readingA short post about how I do SSH session management for network devices in Linux
Continue readingIn this post I will show how to use IETF, OpenConfig and vendor-specific YANG models in Ansible to configure BGP peering and verify state of physical interfaces between IOS-XE and JUNOS devices.
Continue readingOne thing that puts a lot of network engineers off NETCONF and YANG is the complexity of the device configuration process. Even the simplest change involves multiple tools and requires some knowledge of XML. In this post I will show how to use simple, human-readable YAML configuration files to instantiate YANG models and push them down to network devices using a single command.
Continue readingNow it’s time to turn our gaze to the godfather of YANG models and one of the most famous open-source SDN controllers, OpenDaylight. In this post I’ll show how to connect Cisco IOS XE device to ODL and use Yang Development Kit to push a simple BGP configuration through ODL’s RESTCONF interface.
Continue readingThe sheer size of some of the YANG models can scare away even the bravest of network engineers. However, as it is with any programming language, the complexity is built out of a finite set of simple concepts. In this post we’ll learn some of these concepts by building our own YANG model to program static IP routes on Cisco IOS XE.
Continue readingEveryone who has any interest in network automation inevitably comes across NETCONF and YANG. These technologies have mostly been implemented for and adopted by big telcos and service providers, while support in the enterprise/DC gear has been virtually non-existent. Things are starting to change now as NETCONF/YANG support has been introduced in the latest IOS XE software train. That’s why I think it’s high time I started another series of posts dedicated to YANG, NETCONF, RESTCONF and various open-source tools to interact with those interfaces.
Continue readingIn this post we will see how OVN implements virtual networks for OpenStack. The structure of this post is such that starting from the highest level of networking abstraction we will delve deeper into implementation details with each subsequent section. The biggest emphasis will be on how networking data model gets transformed into a set of logical flows, which eventually become OpenFlow flows. The final section will introduce a new overlay protocol GENEVE and explain why VXLAN no longer satisfies the needs of an overlay protocol.
Continue readingThis is a first of a two-post series dedicated to project OVN. In this post I’ll show how to build, install and configure OVN to work with a 3-node RDO OpenStack lab.
Continue readingI was fortunate enough to be given a chance to test the new virtual QFX 10k image from Juniper. In this post I will show how to import this image into UnetLab and demonstrate the basic L2 and L3 EVPN services.
Continue readingIn this post we’ll explore how DVR is implemented in OpenStack Neutron and what are some of its benefits and shortcomings.
Continue readingIn this post we’ll use Chef, unnumbered BGP and Cumulus VX to build a massively scalable “Lapukhov” Leaf-Spine data centre.
Continue readingIn this post we will explore what’s required to perform a zero-touch deployment of an OpenStack cloud. We’ll get a 3-node lab up and running inside UNetLab with just a few commands.
Continue readingOne of the basic function of any data centre network is the ability to communicate with baremetal servers. In this post we’ll see how Neutron L2 Gateway plugin can be used to configure a Cumulus VX switch for VXLAN-VLAN bridging.
Continue readingOne of the basic function of any data centre network is the ability to communicate with baremetal workloads. In this post we’ll see how Neutron L2 Gateway plugin can be used to configure a Cumulus VX switch for VXLAN-VLAN bridging.
Continue readingIn the this post we’ll tackle yet another Neutron scalability problem identified in my earlier post - a requirement to have a direct L2 adjacency between the external provider network and the network node.
Continue reading